so 
HISTORY OR BRITISH CRUSTACEA. 
claws, which when he folds them up lie in the same plane 
with his shell, and fit neatly into its edges. Compact little 
rogue that he is, made especially for sidling in and out of 
cracks and crannies, he carries with him such an apparatus 
of combs and brushes as Isidor or Moris never dreamed of; 
with which he sweeps out of the sea-water at every moment 
shoals of minute animalcules, and sucks them into his tiny 
mouth.”; 
Mr. Gosse, in his ‘ Aquarium^ (p. 47), has given some 
interesting observations on the habits and structure of this 
little Crab, whose usual abode is in the crannies and clefts 
of rocky ledges, and beneath stones which lie at the verge 
of low-water. He says, “ As soon as it is dropped into the 
Aquarium, it throws out its abdomen or tail, and gives seve- 
ral smart flaps with it, which shoot it along diagonally back- 
wards, as if to say, ' Though you see I am a Crab, I have 
learned to behave myself in some things like my courtly 
cousins, the Lobster family/ But he is not much of a 
swimmer; the flaps merely bring him to the bottom slant- 
wise, instead of perpendicularly, whence he does not rise 
again. You turn your head away, and on looking again 
you cannot think what is become of your Broad-claw ! I 
have putrin half-a-dozen at a time, and have been asto- 
